Original post here: https://bsky.app/profile/tommysiegel.bsky.social/post/3lky65itkks23
I wish I could master mindfulness.
do be aware that the term has been used wrongly a lot, proper mindfullness is pretty simple: Just focus on what you're experiencing and how it feels, be that thoughts or sensations or emotions. That's it.
It doesn't have to involve closing your eyes or doing anything special, literally just pay attention to what you're experiencing in the moment.
People tend to make everything related to meditation special and mystical, and act as if the ONLY way to go about it is sit cross legged and go "ૐ... ૐ... ૐ...". But no, meditation is made up of several parts and you can do them in many ways and some will work better depending on the person.
For example just being still and closing my eyes doesn't really relax me for shit, what does relax me is going on a hike in the forest and picking mushrooms.
I was just reading about how vigilance can make mindfulness more difficult. I have a lot of childhood trauma which causes me to experience emotional flashbacks almost constantly. My baseline anxiety level is kept higher than it should be because my brain believes that I am in constant physical danger.
Sometimes the things preventing us from being mindful are also the reasons why being mindful would be so beneficial in the first place. I'm working on treating my trauma and practicing mindfulness simultaneously, and it actually seems to be working.
Big props on getting treatment, that’s huge! Therapy and meds didn’t ‘fix’ me, but it made just existing a hell of a lot better.
Sometimes the things preventing us from being mindful are also the reasons why being mindful would be so beneficial in the first place.
That is a really interesting point! It never occurred to me, but you're right
I'm glad your treatment and mindfulness are bringing you healing!
I'm convinced shit like mindfulness is what was once a useful tool that has been hijacked to become a trick to force people who are abused by society to "work on themselves" while the worst people in society aren't just rewarded for being total assholes, but get to breeze through life never doing a single ounce of actual self-improvement.
I am sooooooooooo tired of being told all I can really do is work on myself when I'm being actively abused by half the people around me. "You can't change other people," uhh, actually you can with things like legislation, regulation, laws, and enforcing those laws. We just have zero stuff like that which forces people to actually treat each other respectfully in the USA.
Like I hate to say it, but in a way, a Social Credit system might not be so bad if it was actually based on rehabilitating antisocial behaviors and rewarding prosocial behaviors. The only reason it sounds dystopian is because it would be controlled by antisocial assholes who would abuse it to do social harm.
mindfulness hijacked
I can see that! Evil people in the world like to blame the victim, they want us to turn our focus inward instead of on their bad actions. We see that with corporations as well.
abused by half of people
There are lots of good people, but lots of jerks too. I find where I live, it's really common for people to just be casually... mean to each other? Especially in a work setting. It drives me crazy, I feel like people need to wake up to how we affect each other.
social credit
It's been banned for now, but can we really say for certain it won't come to pass? Even as a fringe side-project that becomes popular or something? I agree on your points that it would be a motivator, as well as it being abused by those at the top.
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